countrymen, who were grieved at his misfortunes.  He said, that he never had feared what man could do to him, but always had feared Fortune, the most fickle and variable of all deities; and in the late war she had been so constantly present with him, like a favouring gale, that he expected now to meet with some reverse by way of retribution.  “In one day,” said he, “I crossed the Ionian sea from Brundisium to Corcyra; on the fifth day I sacrificed at Delphi; in five more I entered upon my command in Macedonia, performed the usual lustration of the army; and, at once beginning active operations, in fifteen days more I brought the war to a most glorious end.  I did not trust in my good fortune as lasting, because every thing favoured me, and there was no danger to be feared from the enemy, but it was during my voyage that I especially feared that the change of fortune would befall me, after I had conquered so great a host, and was bearing with me such spoils and even kings as my captives.  However, I reached you safe, and saw the city full of gladness and admiration and thanksgiving, but still I had my suspicions about Fortune, knowing that she never bestows any great kindness unalloyed and without exacting retribution for it.  And no sooner had I dismissed this foreboding about some misfortune being about to happen to the state, than I met with this calamity in my own household, having during these holydays had to bury my noble sons, one after the other, who, had they lived, would alone have borne my name.

“Now therefore I fear no further great mischance, and am of good cheer; for a sufficient retribution has been exacted from me for my successes, and the triumpher has been made as notable an example of the uncertainty of human life as the victim; except that Perseus, though conquered, still has his children, while Aemilius, his conqueror, has lost his.”

XXXVII.  Such was the noble discourse which they say Aemilius from his simple and true heart pronounced before the people.  As to Perseus, though he pitied his fallen fortunes and was most anxious to help him, all he could do was to get him removed from the common prison, called Carcer by the Romans, to a clean and habitable lodging, where, in confinement, according to most authors, he starved himself to death; but some give a strange and extraordinary account of how he died, saying that the soldiers who guarded him became angry with him, and not being able to vex him by any other means, they prevented his going to sleep, watching him by turns, and so carefully keeping him from rest by all manner of devices, that at last he was worn out and died.  Two of his children died also; but the third, Alexander, they say became accomplished in repousse work and other arts.  He learned to speak and write the Roman language well, and was employed by the magistrates as a clerk, in which profession he was much esteemed.